squirrels steering

[tom9961]

I have a 72 bronco with factory power steering. I have replaced all the ball joints seals and bearings. Added disc brakes front and rear with hydroboost. New coil springs and shocks. Stock with no lift.

West Texas Offload rebuilt my steering box and upgraded to a 3 turn lick to lock.

It has about 11/2 to 2 inches slack in steering. Slack appears to be in the steering box input shaft before it tightens up and turns the pitman arm. It is really hard to keep it in the correct line of travel going straight are in turns. It tends to dart when you correct your line of travel. Your steer out of the slack and wow it suddenly darts into the correction.

Any thoughts

Caster 2.9 and 2.8
Camber 0.9 and 1.1
Toe 0.5 and 0.5

 

[Apogee]

You should let a human do the steering, not squirrels. I've found that they just don't have the upper body strength or reach required to properly steer any vehicle, let alone an EB.;D

That said, your caster is on the low side, camber looks good, and assuming toe is measured in degrees (so ~1/4" toe total), it should be fine. What size tire are you running? How much pressure do you have in the tires? What's the condition of your track bar bushings?

 

[tom9961]

Tires are just street tires. P235/75R15. Pressure 35lbs.

 

[SavageBurro]

Its not a loose fitting on the p.s. box input shaft is it?

 

[JohnJohn]

What suspension lift are you running?
Is your track bar in alignment with your drag link?

If you have lots of slop in the box then call West Texas.

Have someone turn the wheel a couple inches from side to side while you pinpoint the slop.

My Bronco drives like crap with 35 PSI in the tires. I run them at 28-29. It makes a huge difference and its an easy thing to try.

 

[Vin218]

A good tip that I have read on here on other threads is start it up and have someone turn the wheel back and forth just a little bit while you examine all the different components of the steering linkage. Sounds like you have already replaced a lot but I would try that and see if you notice anything that looks sloppy or off.

 

[sneeeky67]

dont know if you did a drop bracket on the track bar but if you did make sure it is welded in and not bolted in. any play in that bracket and you will have steering issues and if you are really lucky you will get to experience high speed death wobbles ;D

 

[DirtDonk]

He's at stock height with no suspension lift. So no need for any of the other items.
Because of that Tom, it's easy to presume your steering box is centered, but maybe you can check that just in case?
That would entail removing draglink from the pitman arm, then cycling the steering from lock to lock, counting all the turns exactly.
Then putting it back perfectly to the center.

So if it's got exactly three turns lock-to-lock then, you would go back exactly 1.5 turns. If it's got some variation on that theme, say 3 1/4 turns, then go back 1 5/8 turns.
You get the point. The box needs to be perfectly centered.
Then, if the draglink no longer lines up exactly (which it should) then you may have to move the pitman arm over a spline or two until it does line up.

As it is now, when the wheels are pointed straight ahead, is the pitman arm pointed straight down the line of the frame, or just slightly to the driver's side? Or something different from those two?

Are you steering links original too, or have you upgraded to some other type?
You say factory power, but was it swapped in, or is your '72 a later built model? Such has having a P or a Q in the VIN? If you still have the door decal, what month was it built in?
If the steering was swapped in, this last info isn't as important. Just curious if yours had P/S from the factory or not.

That 1.5 to 2 inches of slack is pretty standard for an early model gear box. If that's 2" in either direction, then that's a bit sloppy. But if it's total slack, then that's pretty standard and is likely not your underlying issue.
As said, check different tire pressures and don't hesitate to mess with your toe-in yourself at home. Start at 35 in the front and go down in 2 psi increments to about 25 or so to see what you think.
Quite often you can use about 2-5 psi less in the rear, but every setup acts differently with every different tire and wheel combo, so you have to do your own testing there.

Toe-in is a personal thing too, even though most end up with about 1/8" or so for best results. That's right in the middle of the factory specifications of 1/16 to 1/4 for your year.

Good luck. Post up pics of your setup if you're not sure what exactly has been done to it before you got it.

Paul

 

[SavageBurro]

Not necessarily related to the specific slop you speak of but the darting issue could be caused by your track bar mount(s) being wallowed out. As others suggested... have someone else steer while you inspect. Any movement at all in track bar in either upper or lower mounts and you might need bushings or need to epair of the holes. Pretty common in upper mount.

 

[Rustytruck]

Chalk your front tires and roll them straight ahead and check if your tread is touching all the way across the tread face. if the chalk rubs off just the center of the tire lower your pressure. if it just rubs off the outside and not the center of the tread raise your tire pressure. I personally think you have too much toe in and your tire pressure is too high.

http://www.bcbroncos.com/alignment.pdf

 

[scallanmp]

One problem I had was the PO had the wrong sized pitman arm. When the steering wheel was straight ahead the pitman arm looked straight and aligned. However when I turned the steering wheel back and forth I could clearly see that the pitman arm was rocking back and fourth on the steering box output shaft. The arm was also pressed all the way against the steering box which is incorrect. Since the output shaft splines have a slight taper there should be a little bit of spline showing indicating that the arm is snug and secure against the splines and lock nut. After getting a new arm everything tightened up just as it should.